With gentle words of farewell, former actor Peter Ostrum seemed to capture the outpouring of grief around the world for the late, great Gene Wilder: "It's kind of like losing a parent."
"You know it's going to happen, but it's still a shock," Ostrum, now aged 58, told US media.
"When it happens it hits you like, Gene is gone and there will never be anyone like him again."
In the 1971 film classic Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the film with which Wilder remains most closely associated, Ostrum played Charlie Bucket, a poor kid who wins the last "golden ticket" into Wonka's secret chocolate factory.
Ostrum was 12 at the time. It was his only film role.
"I have very fond memories of Gene," Ostrum said today.
"Even though I was a youngster he treated me with respect, like a fellow actor," he added. "He expected me to be professional, which I thought that I was. He was a great teacher."
Filming Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in Munich, Germany, Ostrum recalled Wilder as a private man who was sociable but focused on his work.
"Gene was very much in the role," Ostrum said. "It wasn't that you couldn't approach him, he was very approachable, but he was serious about what he did and wanted to get it right."
Ostrum did not stay in the acting industry - he now lives in New York state and works as a veterinary surgeon.
Ostrum also paid tribute to actor Jack Albertson, who played Charlie's grandfather, Joe.
"To have made one film and to be associated with Jack and Gene, I feel like I really found the golden ticket," Ostrum said.
Ostrum is not the only Willy Wonka child star to pay tribute to Wilder.
Denise Nickerson, who played Violet Beauregarde, said the legendary actor was "talented and kindhearted".
"You will be sorely missed by so many," she said "All of us have lost our Willy Wonka."
Nickerson signed the note, which she published on social media, "Love, Violet."
Nickerson's character, Violet Beauregarde, was a vain and impulsive gum-chewer.
Now 59, Nickerson left acting after a handful of other roles, notably the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, and became a nurse.
Another of the film's child stars, Julie Dawn Cole, posted a brief statement on social media: "Such very sad news. Words not enough. Treasured memories."
Cole also included a quote from Willy Wonka: "Time is a precious thing, never waste it."
Cole's character, Veruca Salt, is temperamental and demanding; she is ejected from the chocolate factory tour when a machine programmed to separate good and bad goose eggs assesses her as a "bad egg" and ejects her.
Since leaving behind her career as an actor, Cole has worked as a drama teacher also as a psychotherapist.
In 2010, she starred in Willy Wonka Revisited: The Veruca Salt Sessions, playing a grown-up version of Veruca Salt, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
